THE 12 HOURS OF QUESTIONING of independent counsel Kenneth Starr by the House Judiciary
Committee may not have told us much more than we already knew about the facts in the case for
impeachment. But it told us some very painful things about where we are as a country.

The rude and childish behavior of some Democrats on the committee was not just a shameful
performance for them. The very fact such behavior could go on for hours, on nationwide
television, told us how confident they were that our national standards had degenerated to
the point where there would be no public outrage at the sight of Members of Congress acting
like little brats.

Starr's moment of truth

Judge Starr's dignity and poise while these childish displays and irrelevant questions
continued for 12 hours was a sharp contrast to the political antics which had nothing to do
with impeachment -- and everything to do with distracting the public's attention from the
serious issues and grave responsibilities that these committee members were avoiding and
mocking.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats alike want to get rid of the impeachment issue and
it is now only a question of how to do it, without looking like they are abandoning their
constitutional duty for the sake of polls. Since that is in fact what they are doing, it will
be a political challenge to make it look like something else. They would like to end the
matter gracefully, but they are prepared to do it disgracefully, if that is what it takes to
get the issue over with.

The ultimate disgrace would be for Congress itself to join in the deception and corruption
that began in the White House by voting for some meaningless "punishment" like censure. If
there are not enough votes to get impeachment, it is no dishonor to lose. But there is
indelible dishonor in the pages of history for those who became accomplices in the shameless
deception that has accompanied this whole sordid episode.

Despite cries from politicians and the media to "get this behind us," sweeping things under
the rug does not get anything behind us. On the contrary, it buys big trouble down the road
by demonstrating how a president can escape punishment for blatantly criminal actions. The
dangers that this creates will be with us long after Bill Clinton is gone.

We need not speculate about those dangers. We need only look around us in the world to see
what happens to ordinary people in countries where those who hold power are, for all
practical purposes, above the law. History provides still more examples -- especially the
chilling history of twentieth-century despots.

We have been spared most of these traumas by the very rule of law that we have come to take
so much for granted, and value so lightly, that we are willing to brush it aside, so that we
can "get back to the real issues."

While "everybody" does not do what Bill Clinton did -- he and Hillary are, after all, the
first president and "first lady" to be in the kinds of legal troubles that they have been in
-- such behavior has long been far more common in other countries than in the United States
of America. There is a reason: the centuries-old Anglo-American legal tradition that no ruler
is above the law.

This has been more than a phrase. A British king had his head chopped off when he abused his
authority and another fled to France to avoid a similar fate. But today we don't even have
the stomach for impeachment.

This is not just because we have been confused by the non-stop political spinning that has
been going on for months. What is even more scary than our gullibility is our sense of
dependence on our Big Daddy in Washington, whom we credit with economic prosperity that he
has done little to create, and to whom we are looking for both rhetorical solace and largess
from the public treasury.

Others, for ideological reasons, take the position that he may be a so-and-so, but he is our
so-and-so. Clinton is their last best hope for keeping liberalism alive, under false colors,
after it has been rejected under its true colors.

After testifying for 12 hours, Judge Starr made a smiling but pointed reference to a song
about what you can take this job and do with it. In future, getting other people with high
reputations to take on the job of upholding the rule of law against those in power will be a
lot harder after the non-stop smears that Starr has endured. That too is a painful legacy
that will be with us long after all the actors in the current drama are
gone.